A survey on security issues and solutions at different layers of Cloud computing

Cloud computing offers scalable on-demand services to consumers with greater flexibility and lesser infrastructure investment. Since Cloud services are delivered using classical network protocols and formats over the Internet, implicit vulnerabilities existing in these protocols as well as threats introduced by newer architectures raise many security and privacy concerns. In this paper, we survey the factors affecting Cloud computing adoption, vulnerabilities and attacks, and identify relevant solution directives to strengthen security and privacy in the Cloud environment

Web attack risk awareness with lessons learned from high interaction honeypots

Tese de mestrado, Segurança Informática, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2009Com a evolução da web 2.0, a maioria das empresas elabora negócios através da Internet usando aplicações web. Estas aplicações detêm dados importantes com requisitos cruciais como confidencialidade, integridade e disponibilidade. A perda destas propriedades influencia directamente o negócio colocando-o em risco. A percepção de risco providencia o necessário conhecimento de modo a agir para a sua mitigação. Nesta tese foi concretizada uma colecção de honeypots web de alta interacção utilizando diversas aplicações e sistemas operativos para analisar o comportamento do atacante. A utilização de ambientes de virtualização assim como ferramentas de monitorização de honeypots amplamente utilizadas providencia a informação forense necessária para ajudar a comunidade de investigação no estudo do modus operandi do atacante, armazenando os últimos exploits e ferramentas maliciosas, e a desenvolver as necessárias medidas de protecção que lidam com a maioria das técnicas de ataque. Utilizando a informação detalhada de ataque obtida com os honeypots web, o comportamento do atacante é classificado entre diferentes perfis de ataque para poderem ser analisadas as medidas de mitigação de risco que lidam com as perdas de negócio. Diferentes frameworks de segurança são analisadas para avaliar os benefícios que os conceitos básicos de segurança dos honeypots podem trazer na resposta aos requisitos de cada uma e a consequente mitigação de risco.With the evolution of web 2.0, the majority of enterprises deploy their business over the Internet using web applications. These applications carry important data with crucial requirements such as confidentiality, integrity and availability. The loss of those properties influences directly the business putting it at risk. Risk awareness provides the necessary know-how on how to act to achieve its mitigation. In this thesis a collection of high interaction web honeypots is deployed using multiple applications and diverse operating systems in order to analyse the attacker behaviour. The use of virtualization environments along with widely used honeypot monitoring tools provide the necessary forensic information that helps the research community to study the modus operandi of the attacker gathering the latest exploits and malicious tools and to develop adequate safeguards that deal with the majority of attacking techniques. Using the detailed attacking information gathered with the web honeypots, the attacking behaviour will be classified across different attacking profiles to analyse the necessary risk mitigation safeguards to deal with business losses. Different security frameworks commonly used by enterprises are analysed to evaluate the benefits of the honeypots security concepts in responding to each framework’s requirements and consequently mitigating the risk

State-of-the art teaching material of the OWASP Top 10

Nowadays, web security has become something indispensable when working with the Internet, whether to protect business databases, establish communications, etc. With the aim of creating teaching material, I have created some laboratory sessions and documented several issues related to the ?OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) top 10 vulnerabilities?. As a method, a systematic review o information in a large number of reliable Internet resources has been carried out, and several laboratory exercises has been created. As a result a large amount of teaching material including some exercises has been created about different themes, mianly: JWT (JSON Web Tokens), JKUs (JWK Set URL) and JWKs (JSON Web Keys); Cookies, XSS Attacks (Cross Site Scripting). As a conclusion, this project collects information about different topics related to web security, and the exploitation of some vulnerabilities. With all this material, students can get a solid base on this topics and see the performance of some of this attacks.En la actualidad, la seguridad web se ha convertido en algo indispensable a la hora de trabajar con Internet, ya sea para proteger bases de datos empresariales, establecer comunicaciones, etc. Con el objetivo de crear material docente, he creado algunas sesiones de laboratorio y documentado varios problemas relacionados con el 'Top 10 de vulnerabilidades de OWASP'. Como método se ha llevado a cabo una revisión sistemática de la información en un gran número de recursos fiables de Internet y se han creado varios ejercicios de laboratorio. Como resultado se ha creado una gran cantidad de material didáctico que incluye algunos ejercicios sobre diferentes temas, principalmente: JWT (JSON Web Tokens), JKUs (JWK Set URL) y JWKs (JSON Web Keys); Cookies, Ataques XSS (Cross Site Scripting). Como conclusión, este proyecto recopila información sobre diferentes temas relacionados con la seguridad web y la explotación de algunas vulnerabilidades. Con todo este material, los estudiantes pueden obtener una base sólida sobre estos temas y ver el rendimiento de algunos de estos ataques.En l'actualitat, la seguretat web s'ha convertit en una cosa indispensable per treballar amb Internet, ja sigui per a protegir les bases de dades empresarials, establir comunicacions, etc. Amb l'objectiu de crear material docent, he creat algunes sessions de laboratori i documentat diversos temes relacionats amb «OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) top 10 vulnerabilitats». Com a mètode, s'ha dut a terme una revisió sistemàtica de la informació en un gran nombre de recursos d'Internet fiables, i s'han creat diversos exercicis de laboratori. Com a resultat, s'ha creat una gran quantitat de material docent que inclou alguns exercicis sobre diferents temes, principalment: JWT (JSON Web Tokens), JKUs (JWK Set URL) i JWKs (JSON Web Keys); Cookies, atacs XSS (Cross Site Scripting). Com a conclusió, aquest projecte recopila informació sobre diferents temes relacionats amb la seguretat web i l'explotació d'algunes vulnerabilitats. Amb tot aquest material, els estudiants poden obtenir una base sòlida en aquests temes i veure com es portem a terme alguns d'aquests atacs

Behind the Code: Identifying Zero-Day Exploits in WordPress

The rising awareness of cybersecurity among governments and the public underscores the importance of effectively managing security incidents, especially zero-day attacks that exploit previously unknown software vulnerabilities. These zero-day attacks are particularly challenging because they exploit flaws that neither the public nor developers are aware of. In our study, we focused on dynamic application security testing (DAST) to investigate cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. We closely examined 23 popular WordPress plugins, especially those requiring user or admin interactions, as these are frequent targets for XSS attacks. Our testing uncovered previously unknown zero-day vulnerabilities in three of these plugins. Through controlled environment testing, we accurately identified and thoroughly analyzed these XSS vulnerabilities, revealing their mechanisms, potential impacts, and the conditions under which they could be exploited. One of the most concerning findings was the potential for admin-side attacks, which could lead to multi-site insider threats. Specifically, we found vulnerabilities that allow for the insertion of malicious scripts, creating backdoors that unauthorized users can exploit. We demonstrated the severity of these vulnerabilities by employing a keylogger-based attack vector capable of silently capturing and extracting user data from the compromised plugins. Additionally, we tested a zero-click download strategy, allowing malware to be delivered without any user interaction, further highlighting the risks posed by these vulnerabilities. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recognized these vulnerabilities and assigned them CVE numbers: CVE-2023-5119 for the Forminator plugin, CVE-2023-5228 for user registration and contact form issues, and CVE-2023-5955 for another critical plugin flaw. Our study emphasizes the critical importance of proactive security measures, such as rigorous input validation, regular security testing, and timely updates, to mitigate the risks posed by zero-day vulnerabilities. It also highlights the need for developers and administrators to stay vigilant and adopt strong security practices to defend against evolving threats

Security Testing with Misuse Case Modeling

Having a comprehensive model of security requirements is a crucial step towards developing a reliable software system. An effective model of security requirements which describes the possible scenarios that may affect the security aspects of the system under development can be an effective approach for subsequent use in generating security test cases. Misuse case was first proposed by Sinder and Opdahl as an approach to extract the security requirements of the system under development [1]. A misuse case is a use case representing scenarios that might be followed by a system adversary in order to compromise the system; that is a behavior that should not happen in a system. As an effective approach used to model potential threats to the system under development, misuse cases are an effective approach for suggesting mitigation mechanisms. A mitigation use case is a use case that represents the countermeasure requirements of a misuse case. By describing the security threats that may be exploited from the adversary’s point of view, a misuse case provides an effective basis for security testing that addresses the interactions between the adversary and the system under development. Security testing also needs to verify the security mechanisms of the system against misuse cases. Thus, by representing the security requirements of the system, mitigation use cases can also be a good basis for security testing. Misuse cases and mitigation use cases are ordinarily described in natural language. Unfortunately, this approach has difficulties and limits the ability to generate security test cases from the misuse cases and mitigation use cases. This thesis presents a new, structured approach to generating security test cases based on the extracted security test model from the textual description of the misuse cases accompanying mitigation use cases, represented as a Predicate/Transition (PrT) net. This approach will enable the system developers to model the misuse cases accompanying mitigation use cases and then generating security test cases based on the resulting security test models, ensuring that the potential attacks are mitigated appropriately in the software development process. This approach has been applied to two real-world applications, FileZilla Server, a popular FTP server [19] in C++ and a Grant Proposal Management System (GPMS) in Java. Experiment results show that the generated security test cases are efficient test cases that can reveal many security vulnerabilities during the development of GPMS and can kill the majority of the FileZilla Server mutants with seeded vulnerabilities

A Comprehensive Security Assessment Toolkit for HealthCare Systems

This research identifies the critical need for conducting a comprehensive information security assessment of any healthcare system. This effort is vital to establish and maintain compliance of security and privacy in healthcare organizations. The paper presents a novel framework and toolkit for security assessment to establish and maintain regulatory compliance. Furthermore, the paper lays out the design of a comprehensive, automated tool set to gain insight about electronic healthcare information system vulnerabilities in the system. The research then investigates various mitigation techniques to secure a healthcare information system and its electronic health records. Furthermore, as validation the proposed toolkit is evaluated in a real-world HIMSS 6 [1] healthcare organization and their over 20 partnering clinical practices

Shielding against Web Application Attacks - Detection Techniques and Classification

The field of IoT web applications is facing a range of security risks and system attacks due to the increasing complexity and size of home automation datasets. One of the primary concerns is the identification of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks in home automation systems. Attackers can easily access various IoT web application assets by entering a home automation dataset or clicking a link, making them vulnerable to different types of web attacks. To address these challenges, the cloud has introduced the Edge of Things paradigm, which uses multiple concurrent deep models to enhance system stability and enable easy data revelation updates. Therefore, identifying malicious attacks is crucial for improving the reliability and security of IoT web applications. This paper uses a Machine Learning algorithm that can accurately identify web attacks using unique keywords. Smart home devices are classified into four classes based on their traffic predictability levels, and a neural system recognition model is proposed to classify these attacks with a high degree of accuracy, outperforming other classification models. The application of deep learning in identifying and classifying attacks has significant theoretical and scientific value for web security investigations. It also provides innovative ideas for intelligent security detection by classifying web visitors, making it possible to identify and prevent potential security threats

Assessing The Security Posture Of Openemr Using Capec Attack Patterns

Attack patterns describe the common methods of exploiting software. Good software engineering practices and principles alone are not enough to produce secure software. It is also important to know how software it attacked and to guard against it. Knowledge of attack patterns provides a good perspective of an attacker, thus enabling developers and testers to build secure software. CAPEC list is a taxonomy of attack patterns which we believe can enhance security testing. This research seeks to assess the security posture of OpenEMR 4.1.1, an open source Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system, based on CAPEC attack patterns. Five categories of CAPEC attack patterns were analyzed to find their relevance and applicability to OpenEMR. Whereas inapplicable attack patterns were not further considered, applicable attack patterns were further tested to assess OpenEMR vulnerability to them. Various security testing tools were used to carry out the tests. Attack patterns helped to focus black-box and white-box testing procedures on what and where to test. OpenEMR was found to be vulnerable to a number of vulnerabilities such as cross site scripting, authentication bypass, session sidejacking, among others. A number of exploitations were carried out based on the vulnerabilities discovered

Block-scoped access restriction technique for HTML content in web browsers

Web sites, web browsers, web site authors, web component authors, and end users interact in a complicated environment with many recognized and unrecognized trust relationships. The web browser is the arena in which many important trust relationships interact, thus it bears a considerable burden in protecting the interests and security of web end users as well as web site authors. Existing proposals, draft standards, implemented features, and web application techniques go a long way towards allowing rich and compelling content interactions, but they do not provide for rich, mutually-distrusting content to be safely embedded in a single page. This proposal suggests a declarative policy mechanism that permits untrusted content to be safely embedded in a web site while still retaining some richness. It also suggests a policy integration approach to allow multiple cooperative (but not necessarily trusting) parties to provide components of a policy that combine together in a safe manner. It incorporates techniques including fine-grained and coarse-grained permission dropping and white-listing protections for retained capabilities. Finally, the proposed concepts are applied to a number of real-world CVE vulnerabilities, and it is explained how the proposal does or does not prevent or mitigate the attack. The solution is shown to be effective against cross-style-scripting style attacks, and to not be effective at preventing incoming cross-site request forgery attacks